Life Stories
by At A Venture
Summary: Sam is worried about Dean, so he recommends that Dean talk to the only other hunter that's ever been dead and come back from it, Buffy Summers. B/D


**Life Stories**

A Supernatural/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Crossover

* * *

Sam sat heavily on the bed. It creaked as it sank under his weight. Five feet away, on a similarly constructed iron frame mattress, Dean Winchester rolled onto his side. He moaned and mumbled in his sleep, and his face contorted in pained expression. He'd fallen into a drunken stupor, aided in sleep only by the half-empty bottle of whiskey lying on its side next to his bed. Exhaustion tugged at the brothers' sides, pulling them into a weary sleep, but Sam resisted. He watched his brother toss and turn in discomfort. He didn't need to be psychic to tell that Dean's sleep was about as restful as a marathon run. Dean hadn't slept well since his return from The Pit, and tonight would bring him no peace. Sam reached backward to grab his cell phone from the nightstand. He flipped the phone open and keyed in a number. By the time he had it pressed to his ear, the phone picked up.

"Sam," Bobby said forcefully on the other end of the line.

"Hey Bobby," Sam sighed. "Tell me you know how to help him."

"Who? Dean?" Bobby asked. Sam frowned.

"Yeah. Look, he won't… I can't do anything to help him, Bobby. I'm worried. He won't talk to me."

"What do you want him to say, Sam? The man went to Hell. It's not like he ate bad Chinese food."

"Not funny," Sam muttered, narrowing his eyes.

"Did you think I was kidding?" Bobby paused, and on the other end, Sam could hear him rustling through papers. "Alright. I might know one person that can help you out, maybe even give Dean some peace of mind."

"Who is it?" Sam asked, almost sitting on the edge of his seat.

"She's a hunter, probably one of the best in the world. She comes out of…well, a tradition of sorts I guess. She's the only person I know that has died and come back from it."

"Besides Dean," Sam said.

"Yeah, besides Dean. I don't know much about her-only met her the one time, before she died."

"Does she have a name?"

"Buffy Summers. You may have heard of her. She's also known as The Slayer."

---

Buffy thumbed through the pages of a dusty calendar hanging above the reception desk. Cobweb tendrils came loose and fluttered toward the floor. The page was still stuck on June of 2005, a year after Sunnydale had ceased to exist. That was the last time the Hyperion Hotel had seen any kind of life, undead or otherwise. It had been four years since Angel had stood in this place, fighting the good fight, trying to protect the world from itself. Buffy drew a circle in the thick coating of scum that covered the desk's surface. Had she really just celebrated her 26th year? Okay, so not so much a celebration as an acknowledgement of the moment. The bartender poured her another drink and she stared into the glass for a minute before she swallowed the broth. She was the longest living Slayer. She smirked.

"You think there'd be some sort of door prize. Thanks for lasting this long. Enjoy a free Frostee!" Buffy sneered at the empty building. Traveling alone had taken some of the edge off, the constant need to appear happy for the Scooby gang. Traveling alone had also added a bit of cynicism. She shrugged.

Two years ago, Buffy had packed up a few clothes, a few weapons, and thrown it all in the back of Giles' old Citroen. The Slayer army was more than capable of handling the Cleveland Hellmouth without her. In fact, they'd been stationed on almost every problematic spot in the world. Buffy moved from place to place, traveling around the country, looking for a good fight and a needy population to defend. She killed demons, vampires. She rooted out bad witches and rogue hunters and even learned enough magical mojo to cast out a couple of ghosts. The day before yesterday, she'd been tapped by the Man Upstairs, in the form of a not-bad-looking angel named Castiel.

"There is an Apocalypse coming," Castiel warned her, sounding undeniably grave.

"Oh yeah? Another one?" Buffy asked, trying to be cheerful.

"Yes. Your skills are required. There are 66 seals to be broken, and we do not know which ones will be considered vulnerable. If they are broken, Lucifer will walk the earth."

"Like I haven't heard that before," Buffy muttered under her breath.

"Are you willing to fight with us, Slayer?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I'm on it. Demons, vampires, apocalypse, the whole deal. Been there. Done that."

"This is serious, Miss Summers."

"Where do I need to go?"

"Los Angeles. There is a demon there, Soran. If he succeeds in his summoning, another seal will be broken. Lilith will be that much closer to raising Lucifer."

"Soran. Demon. Got it."

Buffy hopped in the Citroen and fussed with the engine until she got it into gear. She switched on the radio and turned it up so loudly that the car began to shake and rattle. It was a two day drive to L.A., especially if she wanted to stop at the Pit that used to be Sunnydale first. When she did make it to Sunnydale, the old town looked as desolate and sad as it had when she'd left. The crater seemed like it was still smoldering, barely holding in the Hell that buzzed beneath it like an incubating fever. Buffy grazed past the town, a misaligned bullet, and kept right on target to Los Angeles. Once inside the city, though, she didn't have a place to stay. The Hyperion loomed like a sore in the misfit streets of downtown L.A. Buffy pulled to a stop behind the building and stared up.

Now, only a few hours later, she hopped up on the counter and closed her eyes. There was nothing left of the place, nothing from its recent history. Angel had lost everything, nearly lost the world to a demonic dimension, and lost a bit of his self in the process. Who knew where he was now? It didn't matter. Buffy Summers wasn't remotely close to cookie dough, and neither was her lost vampire lover. In her pocket, Buffy's cellular began to ring.

---

"What are we doing here again?" Dean frowned as he swallowed another mouthful of whiskey. He tucked the bottle in his pocket and stared blankly out of the windshield.

"Visiting a friend of Bobby's," Sam replied matter-of-factly.

"Why, Sam?"

"You'll have a lot in common with her."

"Sam," Dean smirked. "Are you trying to get me laid?"

"No, Dean. Look, this woman is a hunter, one of the best according to Bobby. Oh, and she's been dead."

"Sam, I do not need to talk to some strange woman about my issues. I can't believe you dragged me across five states for a powwow about Hell."

"Can you just trust me for once, Dean?"

"Fine," Dean grunted, crossing his arms over his chest. "But this better be worth it. We could be working right now."

Sam pulled up behind the crumbling Hyperion Hotel. Only one car sat in the broken lot, a sad-looking grayish yellow Citroen. Dean raised his eyebrows at the vehicle but didn't utter a word. Sam parked alongside it and carefully turned off the engine. Dean got out of the car, and together, the brothers walked through a garden of weeds and dead vines up to a set of peeling double doors. Sam pulled open a door and Dean walked inside. In four years of disuse, the Hyperion hadn't changed at all. In the middle of the lobby, scattered with spider webs and poorly lit, a woman sat on a dusty red bench. Blood ran down one side of her face from a large gash above her temple. Her lower lip was puffy and split. Bruises dotted her arms and jaw. She held one hand, the knuckles broken and bleeding, firmly over her opposite bicep. The arm was swollen and bruised and the girl kept clenching and unclenching her hand.

"You must be the Winchesters," Buffy said through clenched teeth. She didn't look up to engage them. "I'm Buffy. Excuse me if I don't get up."

"Wow. Are you okay?" Sam asked, rushing over to her side. She had a first aid kit next to her on the bench, and a long sword had fallen on the floor near her foot.

"Peachy," she replied. "Hey, since you're here, could one of you pop my shoulder back into place? I've been sitting her for a minute trying to get it to stop hurting long enough to do it myself."

Dean stepped up without a word from where he'd been standing on the front steps. He was all too familiar with the jarring of important bones like the shoulder. Sam's technique for popping joints back into place was amateur at best, but sometimes he was the only hand available. Dean wasn't going to put that same kind of nuisance on this woman. He placed a hand firmly on Buffy's shoulder and another on the back of the bench. Without warning her, he shoved on the limb, popping the ball of her shoulder back into the socket. Buffy grunted loudly, closing her eyes to accept the pain.

"What were you hunting?" Dean asked, trying to move on to the apparent subject. He was impressed by her gesture to the pain, or perhaps her lack of a gesture. She wasn't the fragile blonde that her appearance seemed to suggest. This was one tough girl. He popped open the first aid kid and pulled out a square of gauze and some alcohol for the wound that continued to drip down her face. She would need stitches. That was more Sam's department.

"Soran," Buffy replied without much presentation. "It's a demon. I'm not much for the research, more of the action type, but basically he's trying to open one of those 66 seals and unleash the apocalypse. He's a big guy, horns on his head, sort of shaped like a giant mechanical bull. He had an army of vamps around him, probably the guys that brought him here in the first place. I got most of them, but I'm going to have to get another crack at Bull Guy."

"The 66 seals? You know about that?" Dean blinked. Sam was threading a needle when he, too, looked up.

"Yeah. This guy, claimed to be an angel, Castiel? He pulled me aside at a bar the other day, told me about the latest apocalypse, the seals, Lilith, Lucifer, etcetera. I can't tell you how many times I've dealt with the End of the World. I'm so over it."

"So he sent you here? For this Soran guy?"

"Yeah. I thought I could take care of it. I mean, I've faced my share of demons. In fact, I've probably faced a couple of Slayers' shares of demons. But this guy is pretty big. Powerful. I'll have to take a few more whacks at him, bring him down a peg. Hey, it's a good thing you called when you did. I could use the help."

"So how do you know Bobby?" Dean asked. He handed Buffy the bottle of whiskey from his pocket. She opened the bottle and took a long gulp. Beside her, Sam flicked a lighter and ran the sewing needle through the flame.

"I've only met him once, through my watcher, Giles. They know each other from research circles, apocalypses, that sort of thing. There's a whole network of these people. I'm just the muscle, you know?"

Buffy took two more gulps of whiskey while Sam stitched up the wound just to the left of her temple. She invited them to stay, to take any of the rooms on the second floor. They were all furnished, and there were nice sheets hidden away in the closets of most of the rooms. Holding a square of gauze against her head, Buffy retired up to her own room. She hadn't slept in years, not really anyway, but the thought of a cozy bed was enough to lull her upstairs if not put her to sleep.

Sam carried his stuff upstairs and Dean followed reluctantly. He wasn't looking forward to another fight with the demons of his memory, the light of Hell flickering behind his eyelids. Sam dug through his duffel for Ruby's knife and stuck it strategically under his pillow. He looked at Dean, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. His brother didn't look well, but what could Sam do? The man wouldn't budge, wouldn't give him an inch. Sam simply shook his head, pulled the covers up to his chin, and closed his eyes. Dean listened. He listened to the soft sounds of Buffy's feet on the floor overhead. Did she have trouble sleeping like he did? Damnit, Sam, he thought. You're right. I do want to talk to the strange girl about my problems.

Dean got up and walked to the mirror. He brushed away a layer of dust and looked at the dark circles under his eyes, the watery appearance of his irises. He dumped his jacket on the back of a chair and kicked off his shoes. In his bag, he fumbled for a flask of the good stuff. Then he made his way upstairs. At Buffy's door, he knocked lightly. Behind it, he listened to her invitation. Dean pulled open the door and walked inside. Buffy was sitting cross-legged on her bed, one hand rubbing her shoulder. The swelling had gone down but the skin was badly bruised.

"I haven't slept, really slept, in years," Buffy admitted thoughtfully. She moved over on the bed, inviting Dean to sit down. He slumped down beside her and leaned his back against the wall. "I'm pretty sure I've forgotten what sleep is really like."

"Bobby said you died," Dean murmured, not sure exactly where to start.

"Yeah, a couple times. When I first found out I was The Slayer, I was fighting the Master, this head honcho vamp based over the Hellmouth in Sunnydale. When he rose, he got the jump on me. Bit me, threw me facedown in water. I drowned. Died. My friend, Xander, brought me back. Second time, I jumped off a tower, pretty much sacrificed myself to save my sister, Dawn. I jumped into a Hell Dimension, went through it, hit the concrete and died. I was dead for months before my friend, Willow, brought me back. I've been walking through life like a ghost ever since."

"There's a Heaven," she continued, lost in her own thoughts. "If you were ever curious? It exists. I've been there. It's like freedom, where time just stands still and you know everyone you love is perfectly okay without you. It's the only retirement people like us will ever get. When they brought me back? When I woke up here, dug myself out of my grave, stared at the world? It was like I'd been transplanted to Hell, dragged away kicking and screaming."

Buffy closed her eyes and sat back beside Dean. She didn't look at him. She didn't look at anything. There was nothing else to say, not right now. Dean opened his mouth, but it took a long time for the words to come out.

"I was going to die. Death was following me around, calling my name. I wasn't ready, not really, but I had given in. I knew it was coming. Anyway, my dad sold his soul to save me. Then, a year later, my brother Sam died. He was the only person I had in the world and he died. I couldn't save him, couldn't do anything for him, couldn't help him. So, I sold my soul to bring him back. They gave me a year, a year to live. And then they took me to Hell, mutilated by hellhounds." Dean shuddered.

"Castiel pulled me out of Hell, but not soon enough. Sam keeps asking me to talk to him, tell him what it was like, but how can I? All I want to do is stop thinking about it, stop reliving it."

"I don't have the answers," Buffy shook her head. "I'm in Hell right now. There's no way out, no escape. For years, I've just been trying to feel something. This big switch in my head, it just got shut down."

"You're lucky. I feel it all, everything. I just want to stop, stop feeling. The guilt is cutting me up inside."

Dean looked at the mirror on the other side of the room, stared at the reflection of the woman beside him. They'd lived in opposites, but their lives were strangely similar. He admired the peculiar dullness of her skin, the stitched cut that peeked out under strands of blond hair, the swollen lower lip. She was a fighter. There wasn't one pansy ass bone in her body. She'd been thrown back to the world from some happy ending place and she hadn't given up yet. She blinked slowly and the eyes that came to regard him in the mirror were blank, vacant, expressionless. He turned and kissed her.

Buffy's mouth moved against his, more a following of his motion than a turn of her own. When was the last time she'd touched another person? When was the last time she'd been happy? Intimacy seemed foreign, but not unwelcome. She closed the gap between them and wrapped her arm around his neck. Maybe with Dean, she could find a second of emotion, however temporary it might be. She tried harder. She kissed with more vigor. Her tongue lolled around his mouth, searching. Dean's breath quickened. He pressed her back into the bed, sending up a spiral of dust. He unbuttoned the shirt she wore, eased it off her injured arm. She winced but didn't vocalize her discomfort. He tore his mouth away to press his lips against her skin, to neutralize her pain.

"Do you remember what it's like to be happy?" She asked, breathlessly. Intense green eyes gazed back at her as Dean removed his tee shirt and tossed it onto the broken floor.

"Barely," he replied in a deep husky voice. He found her lips again as he pushed her jeans down her hips, her thighs. There were bruises all over her. The fight had been difficult, and it was far from over. She rolled her fingertips along his back, found the gun tucked into his back pocket. Without reaction, she removed it, tucked it underneath her pillow.

"These are useless," she whispered, tugging him closer.

"Careful, it's loaded," he mumbled.

Like the Slayer, he was free of scars. Their perfect figures locked together, and he stroked her insides, one thrust followed by another. For a mortal man, he was more than powerful. His eyes filled with haze, smoking clouds. She closed hers, rolled her head back to expose her neck, dug into his shoulders with grasping fingers. Feel something, she thought. Feel anything. They ripped at one another, leaving marks, streaks of red and black and blue. Dean groaned into her flesh. Buffy rocked against his pelvis. Their heavy breathing steamed the mirrors, the windows. Together, they moaned, a guttural sound that stayed trapped between them. He rolled over and looked up at the ceiling. He cupped an arm beneath her, held her against his side.

"Do you think we'll win?" Buffy asked. She turned his hand over in hers, looked at the lines in his skin.

"Win what? Against this demon?"

"No, I mean against this latest Apocalypse thing. Prevent the end of the world. Come out on top. Keep living."

"I guess I've never thought about it. I don't really think I want to think about it." Dean frowned. He turned his head to look for the flask among his clothing.

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "I see your point."

---

Buffy hung up the phone and slid off the reception desk. Dean lifted his eyes from where he sat, tossing Ruby's knife back and forth between his hands. Sam glanced up from his laptop, where he'd been doing some last minute research on the demon, Soran.

"So," Buffy started. Even across the room, Dean could see the lack of vigor in her eyes. This was just another job, another obstacle between her and the life she was searching for. "Only way to kill this guy is to chop off his head. I can get to him if you guys distract him."

"Distract him, how, exactly? This isn't one of those possessing demons. He's the original variety."

"And there are some vamps too, if tonight is anything like last night."

"Oh good," Sam muttered. "Vampires."

"There are some stakes in my bag. Vamps are no problem. It's the demon, the Big Bad, that we gotta worry about."

"Come on," Dean shrugged. "We have lives to save."

They didn't have to go far. Soran was in exactly the same place Buffy had left him the night before, an abandoned church in downtown Los Angeles. The vampires stalked around outside like coyotes, guarding the entrance to a building they couldn't set foot in. Buffy stood at the bottom of the cracked stone stairs, swinging her broadsword, turning the handle over and over in her hand. Dean and Sam flanked her, each man armed with wooden stakes, holy water, and knives for close range combat. Buffy turned to look at each of them, her gaze hanging on Dean for a second longer. She cared if he lived or died, and not simply because he was good for a roll in the sack. There was something about him, something valuable. The lack of a cursed soul thing was a pretty nice incentive too. Buffy charged up the stairs with a hint of sensation in her flaccid heart. It gave an edge to her fight.

She thrust her sword through two vamps and steamrolled into the church, wielding the weapon like a battering ram. Soran looked up from the remnants of his casting, and the acrid smell of sulfur was enough to indicate that the deed was done. The seal was broken.

"Hey, bull for brains, you mind not burning down the church? I think it's some sort of monument or something!" Buffy smirked at the demon. He turned to face her, his massive bull horns jutting out of his head like radar. He snarled in appropriate demon fashion and his red eyes flashed violently. He could have bucked at the ground for all Buffy was expecting.

"You gonna stand there all day or are we gonna fight?"

"Oh Slayer, you're too late. Lucifer will rise! And you will die."

"Been there, done that," Buffy shrugged. "You got anything else up those dingy sleeves of yours? Wow, is that corduroy? Honestly, the fashion in Hell is just…sad."

Soran finally galloped toward her, perhaps offended by the comment on his threads. She would never really know for sure. Buffy swung up with the sword, catching him by the tusk. He ripped the weapon away from her, and shoved her across the room with one great scoop of his arm. His throaty cackle bounced from every wall as Buffy smacked her skull on a rotted pew and collapsed on the ground.

"Buffy!" Dean yelled across the room, attracting the attention of the demon. "Damn, there's a reason you demons come to earth dressed in human suits."

"Dean," Buffy grunted, struggling to her feet. "Hand me the sword."

"You okay?" Dean asked, deftly avoiding the demon while he retrieved the sword.

"I could use a massage and an iced latte, actually," Buffy winced.

"Maybe after the whole demon slaughter thing," Dean chuckled.

"Slayer," Soran growled. He started running toward them again. Then he stopped in the middle of the room and turned his great head toward the open doors of the sanctuary. Sam stood between them, one hand outstretched.

"Puny little psychic," Soran laughed. He shook his head slowly, and the very movement knocked Sam to his knees.

"Sam!" Dean yelled.

"You're not going to win," Buffy muttered coolly at the demon, raising her weapon. "It'd be bad for my PR." And with that, she slung the sword, severing his head from his torso. The body fell slowly, like a redwood tree.

"I'm okay," Sam murmured, getting to his feet. "Just trying to distract him."

"It worked," Buffy shrugged. "But not soon enough."

"So another seal is opened and we're that much closer to losing?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Oh good," Dean frowned.

"All in a day's work, I say. Now, how about that latte?"

---

Buffy leaned against the door of the Citroen, in the parking lot of the Hyperion. Sam stood back by the Impala. Between them, Dean hovered, unsure of what to say. In front of him, Buffy was sore and lumpy, the product of another fight between good and evil. She took a sip from the straw of an iced latte. Her eyes closed slowly as she blinked, and in her green irises, he could almost make out a spark. A part of him didn't want to leave her. Finally, he turned and walked to the Impala. The door slammed behind him. Sam jerked his chin up in a nod and got into the passenger seat. He turned to look at Dean across the seat.

"Did she help?"

"Yes, Sam, I'm completely better, like I never went to Hell in the first place."

"I'm serious, Dean."

"She helped. Bitch."

"Jerk."


End file.
